Also, I'm more interested in the 'why' of the paranormal or supernatural, i.e. what is the psychological or existential appeal? (In doing so, I often presume that it's false, but I'm happy to have my mind changed.)

It's escapist fantasy, as Cullion said but I think in a particular direction: defensive nature. It does serve a purpose for many people, I think, in terms of helping their psyche cope with modern living, and that goes all the way back to things like why Greek myths were created...the world needs to be ordered, and in the absence of that, people want to believe in something beyond it that is better.

Many people, especially tweens and teens, want to be something different, so today the young adult section in any major book retailer is rack after rack of various takes on "I Was a Teenage Vampire/Witch/Werewolf/Olympian Demigod/Wizard/Time Traveler/Robot". Teens want to be anything but teenagers and so they fantasize about being superhuman...this is why Twilight, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson are popular, why all the vampire **** is popular...we live in dark times and so everyone wants to be Batman in their own little way. Even you and I!

People also naturally want to believe in some sort of order to the Universe whether it be God or physics or both. I am pretty sure in the Demon/Possession thread we determined through a lot of sources that people are naturally inclined to want to "generate" their gods; whether God/ghosts really exist or not, many people's minds will naturally want something to fill that gap of the "unexplainable" else they would suffer, subconsciously. It must be a truly scary existence to look at the world and have it horrify you daily, but that is reality for many people and so to be anything but human means to free yourself from the drab, real world that just might be totally free of ESP and telekinesis. For many people, books can fill that need, for others, TV, some try to seance with the dead, and some, of course, end up off their rocker.

But even if the Universe were free of those psionic dynamics, you can still make huge explosions with just some water and solid sodium metal.

Magic is boring compared to science. Or its really just the same thing...understanding and manipulating the elements of the Universe to produce explosive force is pretty magical, imho.

In the case of people purporting to put people in contact with dead loved ones, it's fairly clear that they're looking to settle unfinished business, what American pop-psychology would refer to as 'closure'.

People like Uri Geller hold out the hope that if we can make things happen just by really wanting them to happen. He's asking us to believe that we can be Harry Potter, too.

But there are an awful lot of reports of the 'paranormal' which were downright confusing, or even frightening, for the people involved. I'm not sure what that's all about.

Yes, agreed. I wonder just how common madness is? Just brief moments of insanity, quickly followed by baffled normality.

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Teens want to be anything but teenagers and so they fantasize about being superhuman...this is why Twilight, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson are popular, why all the vampire **** is popular...we live in dark times and so everyone wants to be Batman in their own little way. Even you and I!

Somewhere on Bullshido I've a thread about my own LARPing. It makes a similar point about the 'Batman' in all of us.

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Yes, agreed. I wonder just how common madness is? Just brief moments of insanity, quickly followed by baffled normality.

I think it's fairly common. I had a few experiences like this (last one was over 10 years ago), and I know a few people in real life who've also had them.

A couple of years ago I posted some of my own 'unusual' experiences in one of the off-topic threads. All of them were confusing and/or a bit frightening at the time. We're talking about things like seeing strange lights when out walking in the country at night, and once seeing the apparition of a ghostly little girl stood next to my bed.

I don't consider any of them to be convincing evidence of the existence of paranormal things. Some of them are more easily explained as waking dreams (the little girl next to the bed), and some as misidentification of natural phenomena (lights in the field could easily have been perfectly natural lights distorted through fog and the nervousness of being alone in the country late at night).

I've met several people who come across as relatively skeptical and 'normal' who've experienced odd things. Most of them write them off as the kind of momentary madness I've described.

The only apparently sane person (I tend to ignore stories like this from people who show signs of mental illness or heavy drug use) I've met in real life who saw these kind of things and didn't write them off was a retired policeman who lived next door to my family when I was in my early teens.

He was absolutely convinced he'd twice had close encounters with UFOs, one of them with his wife present.

I think it's fairly common. I had a few experiences like this (last one was over 10 years ago), and I know a few people in real life who've also had them.

A couple of years ago I posted some of my own 'unusual' experiences in one of the off-topic threads. All of them were confusing and/or a bit frightening at the time. We're talking about things like seeing strange lights when out walking in the country at night, and once seeing the apparition of a ghostly little girl stood next to my bed.

I don't consider any of them to be convincing evidence of the existence of paranormal things. Some of them are more easily explained as waking dreams (the little girl next to the bed), and some as misidentification of natural phenomena (lights in the field could easily have been perfectly natural lights distorted through fog and the nervousness of being alone in the country late at night).

I've met several people who come across as relatively skeptical and 'normal' who've experienced odd things. Most of them write them off as the kind of momentary madness I've described.

The only apparently sane person (I tend to ignore stories like this from people who show signs of mental illness or heavy drug use) I've met in real life who saw these kind of things and didn't write them off was a retired policeman who lived next door to my family when I was in my early teens.

He was absolutely convinced he'd twice had close encounters with UFOs, one of them with his wife present.

I must admit to serious doubts regarding 'alien' and ghost sightings. I don't doubt folks saw something, but the link to paranormal or extraterrestrial entities is dubious.

It's all conspiratorial and vague and sketchy. Unless they were shy or up to something, they'd just say: "Hello. I'm an alien," or "Yo, I'm the spirit of a dead dude, brah."

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